While Trump Plans to Golf, Kamala Harris Visits Troops in Afghanistan

California Democrat Sen. Kamala Harris visited Afghanistan over the weekend and traveled to Kabul, Kandahar, and Mazar-e-Sharif as part of a congressional delegation.

Harris services on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Two Republican colleagues from the Intelligence Committee joined her and their itinerary included meeting with American troops and meetings with national security professionals and diplomats, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“I was grateful to receive on-the-ground briefings on the state of the region and discuss how best to keep our country and our allies safe from the threat posed by terrorism,” Harris said. “I remain eager to find a political solution to the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan so we can bring U.S. service members and national security professionals home,” Harris, who is considering a run for the presidency in 2020, continued.

“I’m going to a war zone,” Trump said in November, when asked about his noticeable lack of war zone visits.

The president has yet to schedule visits to US soldiers in war zones such as Afghanistan, where more than 8,000 US troops are fighting the Taliban. Nor has Trump scheduled a trip to the U.S. border with Mexico, where several thousand U.S. soldiers will spend their holidays bolstering security.

Nearly every president since Dwight Eisenhower has visited U.S. troops in conflict zones to boost morale and show conviction in their decisions to engage US soldiers abroad. Trump, however, has not done so. Instead, he has sent Vice President Mike Pence to visit U.S. troops in conflict zones.

“I’m here on behalf of your commander in chief and all of the American people to pay a debt of honor and respect and gratitude to each and every one of you for your service and your sacrifice,” Vice President Mike Pence told soldiers and airmen at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan during a visit a year ago.